Survey says: iPhone 5 owners not bothered by iOS 6 Maps—are you?

More people were bothered by the Lightning connector than Maps.

Is the iOS 6 Maps controversy actually affecting people's willingness to buy a new iPhone 5? Not in a significant way, according to a survey conducted by ChangeWave and 451 Research. The two companies teamed up to ask 4,270 smartphone consumers during the month of September about their perceptions of the iPhone 5, as well as about upcoming phones that run Windows 8. What the firms found was that the masses consider some of the nitpicks about iOS 6 and/or iPhone 5 to be of little consequence, though the impending introduction of Windows 8 may lure away some who are on the fence.

According to the survey, 90 percent of those who currently own an iPhone 5 running iOS 6 said they had not yet run into a problem while using the new version of Maps. Six percent said that Maps had been "somewhat of a problem," while three percent said Maps was a major problem.

ChangeWave points out that this is similar to a 2010 survey that followed the iPhone 4's "antennagate," where the majority of customers (64 percent) indicated that they had not experienced any noticeable antenna problems. Those numbers were largely reflected by our own poll of the Ars Technica readership—with almost 7,000 votes, 60 percent of Ars readers said at the time that they hadn't been affected by the iPhone 4's antenna issue.

The more interesting statistics in the new survey come from questions about Apple's Lightning connector. As I wrote in our iPhone 5 review, the new connector can be an inconvenience for longtime Apple product owners who have 30-pin connectors coming out of their ears, though now seems as good a time as any for Apple to make a change. Those surveyed by ChangeWave seemed to be in agreement. They actually appear to be more bothered by the Lightning connector than they are by Maps—31 percent said the Lightning connector was "somewhat of a problem." Still, when the companies surveyed users who weren't likely to buy an iPhone 5, zero percent said their decision was due to the Lightning connector.

Then there are those who are eyeing some of the new devices that will run Windows 8 when it is released later this month. Nine percent of those surveyed said they were likely to buy one such device, with 36 percent of those saying their top reason was integration with Windows apps on the desktop. Although nearly half said they didn't know yet which manufacturer they might choose—HTC, Nokia, and Samsung all plan to release Windows 8 Phones—the early numbers could be promising.

"Considering marketing has yet to begin, these findings show Windows Phone 8 will likely have a substantial impact on the smartphone industry," ChangeWave VP of research Paul Carton said in a statement.

Your mapping adventures

Returning to Maps and the iPhone 5, we're interested to see what the Ars readership thinks now that the device has been public for several weeks. If you already own an iPhone 5, has Maps diminished your experience? And if you haven't bought one yet but are still planning on it, does the Maps situation give you pause? Or is the whole issue overblown?

199 Reader Comments

I still think and overhead view is stupid, who knows what the buildings looks like from above unless you flyover alot? Street view is a useful feature where flyover 3D might only be useful to architects or those who can imagine the tops of buildings.

A friend who upgraded his 4s put it like this: Functionally it's not a big deal because he has downloaded a bunch of replacement apps that seem to work pretty well. What bothers him is that a company he's given thousands of dollars in business decided to degrade the user experience of a device that he bought because of their own business interests and then they had the arrogance to try and sell the inferior experience as an improvement.

What I'd like to know is of the people surveyed, how many actually use Maps on a regular basis? Or how many even use it at all. I never planned on buying the iPhone 5, going to wait for next years model (should be a more significant upgrade to my current 4S). But I was planning on updating to iOS 6. I'm not a Maps power user, but I do use it enough that issues I'm hearing about iOS 6's Maps, is giving me reservation to update. I do hope that Apple fixes the issues, and improves upon what they have. ie. have their own version of Street View (love that feature in Google Maps). Or at the very least, allow Google to put their standalone Google Maps (which I hear is ready to go) in the App Store.

not just that the connector is different, but that the lightning adaptor doesn't support the control features of the old connector. so i cannot connect an iphone 5 or the new ipod touch to my car and use the dashboard interface.

it might be 5 years before i replace the car so apple will not be getting any money from me in until perhaps the iPhone 8 at the earliest.

I have a 4S and I've had no problems with Maps so far. I wish Siri gave me a bit more warning before telling me to turn, as the GPS tends to lag behind reality by 2-3 seconds, but I've never been led astray. I'll get a 5 when my contract is up.

I think for the most part this whole map situation is blown out of proportion. Yes it's slightly flawed, but its WAY better than the Garmin on my motorcycle and my Tom Tom in my car and nobody is bitching about those companies. GPS for me has always been a "best suggestion" and not the law. Everyone knows the tech isn't perfect... well except for those people who drive off cliffs and stuff because the GPS tells them to.

I was going to upgrade from a 3GS to a 5, but after installing iOS 6 on my 3GS, I'm just bailing out and looking to switch....probably to a Lumia. Besides the fact that Maps is horrible, iOS 6 has totally killed wifi for me for some reason. The phone will connect to networks, work for 3-5 minutes and then stop transferring data completely until I turn wifi off. It will not connect to the app store under any circustances when connected to wifi.

I realize that this is a probably an isolated case and that I shouldn't complain since I'm using 3-yr-old hardware, but the whole situation just got me thinking that I was bored with iOS anyway and made me start really focusing on little nit-picky things I don't like about it. Add the adaptor situation on top of that with the 5 and there just hasn't ever been a more perfect time to try something else since I first bought an iPhone.

I actually really like Apple Maps. Since the release of iOS 6 I've visited Chicago, Dallas and DC, and it performed amazingly well in all of those cities.

My favorite feature is the Yelp integration, which lets you jump to reviews about a landmark or venue straight from the maps interface. It made it a breeze to find good places to eat. The turn-by-turn directions were also very useful when my cab driver got lost (new in town) and had to use my iPad to find his way to the destination.

Most of the complaints about Apple Maps were from people who live in Bumfuck, Nowhere. Sucks to be them.

As a civil engineer, I spend a lot of time driving around to different job sites. In the South, this means going to a lot of poorly mapped and undeveloped areas. So far Apple Maps have given me as good of directions as Google ever did. Both have problems with "roads" actually being country/farm access roads that were mapped a long time ago by the states but not "roads." This is based on a relatively small sample size, but that is more so Google (it has given some HORRIBLE directions in the past).

I've never gotten lost with either, but the vector support in Apple Maps make it far superior to the previous Google-powered apps seeing as I spend a lot of time in areas with little to no cell phone coverage. It is invaluable when I need to refer to a map to determine access points to poorly mapped areas.

I don't use public transit, so I don't care about it missing. Never used street view either, it's usually too out of date for my uses or simply unavailable.

I really, really miss the transit directions. 3D maps are pretty but day to day how useful are they. Street view was also very useful. These were killer apps for getting around unfamiliar places. Now they're toys.

not just that the connector is different, but that the lightning adaptor doesn't support the control features of the old connector. so i cannot connect an iphone 5 or the new ipod touch to my car and use the dashboard interface.

it might be 5 years before i replace the car so apple will not be getting any money from me in until perhaps the iPhone 8 at the earliest.

I suspect by then your iOS or Android device will connect via Bluetooth, wifi, Airplay, NFC, or some such wireless connection protocol.

Its not 100% but I think everyone here is forgetting how long Google Maps had bad data in most places.

I had to report problems in Google Maps when it was first out, doing that for this too on the areas I know. If you're complaining you find bad results and not reporting, you're doing everyone else that wants to search for it a disservice as well.

Yes it is "free" updates for Apple but it isn't overly difficult to hit report issue and correct it. I've been submitting updates for my city since beta1 and they do get fixed eventually. Most maps issues here are minor like 7st w instead of east etc....

But I have waze for traffic speed updates so meh, whatever. Its workable, just needs backend data updates.

The situation is not optimal, but do I put up with the mapping situation to get everything else the iPhone 5 gives? Yes.

Will I download the Google Maps application when and if it's released? Absolutely. I think the step towards splitting driving/walking and mass transit is terrible and am looking forward to getting those two back together.

I use Google Maps and their Navigation on my Android phone and some of the directions seem really strange to me, I always get where I want to be, but I'm not always sure it's the fastest way. I know my city well, but when going to a new friends house it will sometimes lead me on a lot of side streets. Would have to time it both ways to know if the map system knows better than intuition.

3% of owners saying that maps is a major issue seems kind of high to me, actually. Statistically it's small, but in the real world that's a lot of people. Drugs don't make it to market if they kill 3% of the test subjects.

That being said, it's just a phone, so the world will be much more forgiving. I'm fascinated by the fact that people are interested in WP8 devices despite the total lack of marketing. I would love if MS pushed hard into a solid #3 spot. Variety is the spice of life, folks.

Wouldn't it be better to ask the tens of millions of non-iPhone5 owners, who upgraded to ios 6, how they feel about the maps? Personally I miss the transit routing, but the suggested replacement, Transit, is pretty good and they've made rapid improvements to it. So the whole Map thing is just another 1st-world problem.

As far as driving directions, with my iPhone 4 I use Waze and GPS Drive MotionX. MotionX is superior in reliability but costs a few dollars/year for spoken instructions. Waze is a great concept--crowd-sourced improvements--but the routing algorithms are completely unreliable and have always failed me at times of greatest need. I tried the free MapQuest a couple years ago, didn't like it, but they've made improvements and maybe it's now usable.

I was going to upgrade from a 3GS to a 5, but after installing iOS 6 on my 3GS, I'm just bailing out and looking to switch....probably to a Lumia. Besides the fact that Maps is horrible, iOS 6 has totally killed wifi for me for some reason. The phone will connect to networks, work for 3-5 minutes and then stop transferring data completely until I turn wifi off. It will not connect to the app store under any circustances when connected to wifi.

I realize that this is a probably an isolated case and that I shouldn't complain since I'm using 3-yr-old hardware, but the whole situation just got me thinking that I was bored with iOS anyway and made me start really focusing on little nit-picky things I don't like about it. Add the adaptor situation on top of that with the 5 and there just hasn't ever been a more perfect time to try something else since I first bought an iPhone.

Just as an anecdotal comment, I have a 3GS w/ iOS 6 and I've not encountered any of those issues. Like you though, I too am looking at other phones with a purchase likely to come late this year or early next.

I answered that I already have an iPhone, and that Maps isn't an issue. The reason being that I rarely ever used the Google Maps anyway, since they never had turn by turn directions in the first place. I purchased the TomTom app when the iPhone 4 came out, when it was on sale. I replaced my stand alone Garmin with it and it never failed me. It also had the maps stored locally, so I wasn't dependent on the data connection. I also use Waze to route me around traffic.

I did try the new Apple maps. Most of the time, it seemed okay. One time it would have sent me to the wrong place (it has the wrong location for the Westfarms Mall, it was directing me to a bus stop that serves the Westfarms Mall). But I wouldn't have been able to do that with the Google Maps anyway. I actually like a lot about Apple Maps. It's integration with Siri is helpful, as I can just tell it where I want to go. Hopefully the mapping data will get better with time.